Does your Thanksgiving include a stellar feast from a talented home cook? If so, lucky you. If not, the dread of yet another bland holiday meal should finally be the kick in the pumpkin you need to learn a thing or two about cooking. Start with Martha’s textbook and by next T-Day you’ll be incorporating tricks from Alinea’s, too. “Essence of turkey with butternut squash vapors anyone?

Giada’s Kitchen

New Italian Favorites

by Giada de Laurentiis

Clarkson Potter

The Food Network star’s latest cookbook offers an array of appealing contemporary Italian recipes such as Asparagus Lasagna, Swiss Chard and Sweet Pea Manicotti and Turkey Osso Buco, a dish that’s likely to give you a leg-up this Thanksgiving.

Suitable For: Cooks who can never have too much Giada or Italian food, and men who want to ogle photos of a beautiful woman under the guise of cooking (ladies: watch out for repeated visits to pages 108-109 and 154-155).

Nice Touch: “Not Just for Kids” – a chapter devoted to recipes for youngsters interested in cooking.

Highly respected longtime NYC restaurant chef Sara Jenkins, the owner of Porchetta, an East Village shop devoted to the eponymous pork dish, has collaborated with the editor of La Cucina Italiana on an ooh-and-ahh inducing assortment of big-flavored dishes that crisscross the Mediterranean.

Suitable For: Cooks who loved Mario Batali’s best-seller “Simple Italian Food” and now want to expand their Mediterranean repertoire. Speaking of The Orange-Clogged One, his and Gwyneth Paltrow’s vibrant “Spain: A Culinary Road Trip,” the companion piece to their PBS series, is worth a look, too.

Ingredient Tip: Head straight for the recipes that call for aleppo, bottarga and fennel pollen.

Winner: New Cookbook Most Likely to Get Stained Fast – and Look Even Better for It.

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics

Fabulous Flavors from Simple Ingredients

by Ina Garten

Clarkson Potter

Trendy ingredients? Six-part recipes that take a day to complete? Phooey! Ina Garten’s cookbooks are bestsellers because the dishes are familiar (e.g. Wild Mushroom Risotto), relatively easy to make and absolutely “money” – tested more times than major league ballplayers are for steroids.

Production Values: Like the late Paul Newman: almost too handsome, but you know there’s substance.

Martha Stewart’s Cooking School

Lessons and Recipesfor the Home Cook

by Martha Stewart with Sarah Carey

Clarkson Potter

Those who love to hate Ms. Stewart (and company) for her perfectionism will be further aggrieved by this dazzling textbook that is so comprehensive, user-friendly and visually appealing that it could single-handedly dent cooking school enrollments nationwide.

And: Best Passive Aggressive Gift – watch out if your mother-in-law leaves this one under the tree.

Alinea

by Grant Achatz

Ten Speed Press

Hands down, the coffee table cookbook of the year, this culinary mind-expanding tome from Grant Achatz and his staff at the Chicago-based, award-winning restaurant Alinea is a fascinating peek into what many consider America’s most innovative professional kitchen. Expect eight-part recipes for dishes that employ very foreign ingredients, take days to make, require equipment you won’t find in home kitchen (and many professional ones) and come out looking like Dali-esque dreamscapes. Warning: XXX food porn.

Behind the scenes at one of New York City’s most celebrated restaurants. Ripert tells about the stress of taking over the kitchen at age 29, and throws in a few recipes (Shaved Smoked Bonito) for good measure.

Suitable For: People who crane their neck when out to dinner when the kitchen door swings open.

Fun facts: Pounds of black sea bass served every week (500); average number of minutes to cook a dish (5); bottles of wine in the cellar (14,000); the monthly flower bill ($12,000); the number of waitstaff who are actors (0).

Winner: Book Most Likely to End Up on Coffee Table of “Top Chef” Addicts.

Heirloom Beans

Great Recipes for Dips and Spreads, Soups and Stews, Salads, and Salsas and Much More from Rancho Gordo

by Steve Sando and Vanessa Barrington

Chronicle Books

And now for something really different. Steve Sando, the owner of Rancho Gordo, a boutique Bay Area bean, seed and produce supplier, has published a cookbook that highlights a wide array of heirloom beans that most cooks didn’t even know existed.

Suitable For: People obsessed with beans (the seven of you know who you are); folks looking to get a head start on next year’s restaurant menu trend.

Five Heirloom Beans That Could Double as Heavy Metal Bands: Eye of the Goat, Black Calypso, Scarlet Runner, Red Nightfall and Cellini.